Indonesian Tattoos

Indonesia, like Hawaii, has a very long history of indigenous tattooing, but only on a few of the 13,000 islands that make up this vast and fascinating archipelago. Without knowing it, you have seen Indonesian influenced tattoos. Those bold black ‘tribal’ designs that are all the rage in western tattooing originate from the Dayak peoples of Borneo (Kalimantan and Sarawak). The geckos you see on so many westerners’ bodies have originated from the ancient motifs of the eastern Indonesian islands of Sumba and Timor. Indonesian scholars actually argue that tattooing all over the Pacific was introduced through mariners whose roots lie in the Dongson culture of Vietnam, and who had been tattooing since they first settled on the island of Mentawai off the west Indonesia island of Sumatra back in the iron age. From there, they sailed throughout the Pacific bringing the art with them, which thus explains the resemblance. Like the tattoos of Hawaii, New Zealand, and many of the other Polynesian Islands, Indonesian indigenous marking fell into decline as missionaries and ‘modernization’ encroached on very different ways of living. But unlike Polynesia where tattooing died out centuries ago only to make a ‘traditional’ revival in recent times, Indonesian tattooing has only just begun to die out in this generation of ‘globalized’ youths. Now, as you wander through the markets in Borneo as I did last year, only the elderly (in local terms - roughly aged in their mid 30s and up) show the marks of their coming-of-age, position, status, skills, or how many heads they’ve taken. Along with several well-marked women in the ladies’ toilet in the marketplace, we uncovered to reveal and talk about our tattoos. All these women spoke of their tattoos with embarrassment. "No, we will not tattoo our children", they all told me. "It hurts too much and it’s ugly. Smooth and clean is so much better", they claimed as they admired my white thigh and were clearly unimpressed by the tattooed right one.